Read about folder views on Plone.Org

One of the concepts that many newcomers to Plone struggle with is understanding how or why Plone displays the content that it does. It's fairly obvious how content on a page got there: you simply edit the page and use the visual editor to add content. But what about folders and collections?

Containers and Aggregators

Certain content types in Plone are what are called containers. A folder is an example of a container in Plone. Simply put, a folder is a content item that contains other content items (such as pages, images, and files). Collections are also containers, although more properly they are called an aggregator. The items in a collection don't literally reside there as they do in the case of folders; instead a collection aggregates content items from the site and displays them in one place.

When working in Plone, you don't necessarily need to make distinctions between aggregators and containers other than to realize that only these content types have the display menu available to them. Pages, images, files and so on do not have the Display menu.

Folder Views

Let's start with a discussion of folder views and the options available in the folder's Display drop-down menu. There are five default options available in a folder Display menu. They are:

• Summary View - Displays folder contents by Title & Description. If the content item being displayed has an attached thumbnail image (i.e. News Item), it will appear also.
• Tabluar View - Items are displayed in a simple table by Title & Type. If you are logged in as a Manager, you'll also see the Author and Modification Date.
• Thumbnail View - This viewed is designed for Images only to create a simple photo gallery. Images are displayed as thumbnails which click through to the full-sized image.
• Standard View - The view a folder has when you first create the folder. Items are listed by Title & Description.
• Default Content Item View - If you want to use the content of a single item in the folder, use this view. This is most commonly used when you desire a folder to have a 'landing page' instead of a listing of contents.

Collection Views

A Collection has all the same views available to it that a folder has, plus a special Collection View. By default, the Collection View and Standard View appear identical but your web developer can customize each independently of each other. Note that you select Collection Views in the Display menu under the Item Display heading (the bottom half of the menu) and not the Folder Display heading (top half of the menu).

Remember, Collections aggregate content items - they do not contain them. That is to say that you cannot literally move items in and out of a Collection in the same way you can with a Folder. However, as a site manager you can make bulk changes to items aggregated in a Collection by appending "folder_contents" to the end of the URL of the Collection. For example:

http://www.mysite.org/news/aggregator/folder_contents

Custom Views

Many Plone add-on products provide additional views for folders and collection as well as custom views your web developer may have created for you. These views will be available under the Display menu along with the standard Plone views.